


i've always had a thing for silence (but lately I just need a voice I recognize)

by inordineight



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: LITERALLY, M/M, Pseudo-Incest, Soulmates, Stream of Consciousness, Unrequited Love, i WILL continue this when school is out, i just need more tommybilly in my life okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 08:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12453441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inordineight/pseuds/inordineight
Summary: there's no misery tommy shepherd can't outrun.





	i've always had a thing for silence (but lately I just need a voice I recognize)

and tommy can’t help the clench in his chest when he sees that face, so achingly, hatefully familiar yet wondrously foreign, staring straight at him and only him, for one heart-stopping moment.

his world freezes and it’s an alien feeling, because he isn’t running but the world is still. he isn’t running but everything around him is slowing down. it should feel impossible, it should terrify him and strike him down with panic and fear, but instead he just feels calm. billy’s here. everything is as it should be.

later he’ll wonder why he didn’t take the chance to run the moment they broke him out. or, more accurately, the moment he’s had his fill of looking at billy, immortalizing the way his own face looks with dark hair and dark eyes in his mind, then sprinting off before any of them would notice. but he listens to kate and he fights alongside eli and they all come together to bring teddy back. it’s a hollow victory, standing to the side as billy throws his arms around him, around teddy- this otherworldly golden-haired prince of a boy who had loved and protected billy when he hadn’tdidn’tcouldn’t.Ididn’tkowyouwerewithmeinthisworldIfeltso _alone_ \- with all his might.

and it’s not as if he expects to suddenly have a space in billy’s life, that the other boy would just drop everything to keep him by his side but- who is this boy? and he _is_ just a boy, as green-skinned and super-powered as he may be. why does he get to hold billy and pull him close and lay a hand on his shoulder or his back so easily, so perfectly and casually intimate? what gives him the right to have what tommy never knew he wanted, what he never knew he’s been missing all his life?

he’s not entitled to anything from billy, he knows he’s not. not his time, not his concern, not his brown-eyed gaze nor his toothy smile. certainly not his home. not the open invitation to become part of his new- no **real** , loving, supportive and entirely deserved- family.

and the drs. kaplan tell him that if he’s billy’s brother, then that’s good enough for them. and tommy doesn’t cry but he thinks he kind of wants to because in this life, his own parents were never this kind, never this selfless. in this life, billy calls him brother and it hurts more than it should. I don’t know you, he wants to shout. I was supposed to be your mirror, I was supposed to be the one at your back, I was supposed to be the one who knew you more than anyone else did. why don’t I _know_ youit’snotfairIwould’velookedforyouIwould’vefoundyou but he didn’t. and he doesn’t _know_ this billy.

so he runs.

*

he meets another dark-haired boy and he’s got scars and he’s got _lightning_ shooting out of his fingertips. it’s not blue like billy’s, not as hot and not as familiar. but he likes to think their mouthlipsthroatthighs would’ve tasted the same.

his sadness doesn’t stare out of windows like billy does. sometimes, when he feels it creeping in, he climbs up into rooftops and runs in place as fast as he can for what feels like hours but is probably just a couple of minutes until it’s gone again. 

there’s no misery tommy shepherd can’t outrun.

**Author's Note:**

> this was completely unedited I'm sorry I just needed to get it out, will rewrite and continue after school is done promise. that was brandon sharpe btw in case it wasn't obvious

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [standing with an army (I'll be yours)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179654) by [inordineight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inordineight/pseuds/inordineight)




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